JERSEY CITY - There's a gruesome double murder mystery in New Jersey. Police say who did it's not a mystery because someone is under arrest but the mystery is why the accused killer cut of two men's heads and hands.

The victims are reportedly from Jersey City, but their remains were found buried in a town southwest of Philadelphia.

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police announced an arrest. 28-year-old Yusuf Ibrahim is in custody.

Investigators say Ibrahim shot and killed the victims, severed their heads and hands, and buried the remains at a Buena Vista house.

Back in Jersey City, friends of the victims are praying that police will have the answers to the questions that now haunt them.

Privately some wonder if it had something to do with the victims' religion.

Recently read "The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" by Lawrence Wright. Outstanding book. Traces the history of Al Qaeda and the events leading up to 9/11. If you want to know more about the ideology behind these people, I highly recommend it.

An Appeal to Firefighters, Present and Past from a retired FDNY Lieutenant

Fellow Firefighters, A great tragedy befell our community on September 11, 2001, an unprecedented 343 deaths in the line of duty. As horrible as that toll is, if there were a rational explanation for it, we could accept it and mourn. We all understood the risk we accepted when we took the oath of office, that chance might cut short our lives when we placed ourselves in harm’s way in the public’s service. This is what we are paid for and it is our honor. However, in short, the official explanation of the events of that day are not only insufficient, they are fantastic and cannot bear rational examination. We are asked to believe that on that day three structural steel buildings, which have never before in history collapsed because of fire, fell neatly into their basements at the speed of gravity, their concrete reduced to dust. We are asked to believe that jet fuel (kerosene) can melt steel. We are asked to believe that the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, that responded to sixty-eight emergencies in the year prior to 9-11 in less than twenty minutes allowed aircraft to wander about for up to an hour and a half. We are asked to believe that the steel and titanium components of an aircraft that supposedly hit the Pentagon “evaporated”. There is much, much more if anyone cares to look into it. Trade Tower #7 by itself is the “smoking gun”. Not hit by an aircraft, with only a few relatively small fires, it came down in a classic crimp and implosion, going straight into its basement, something only very precise demolition can accomplish, which takes days if not weeks to prepare. The 9-11 Commission didn’t even mention it, and F.E.M.A. actually stated they DIDN’T KNOW WHY IT COLLAPSED AND LEFT IT AT THAT. Brothers, I know that the implications of the above are hard, almost unthinkable, but the official explanation is utter nonsense, and three hundred and forty three murdered brothers are crying out for justice. Demand a genuine investigation into the events of September 11!

They say history repeats itself - and sometimes it doesn't wait very long.

Case in point: the brouhaha over inflammatory anti-Islamic advertisements posted Monday on the outside of 10 Muni buses.

The ads, paid for by the controversial American Freedom Defense Initiative, feature photos of Osama bin Laden, a victim of the Fort Hood mass shooting, the Times Square car bomber and others, accompanied by incendiary quotes invoking weapons and warfare and linking them to Islam. One quote attributed to "Hamas MTV," reads: "Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah."

City leaders including Mayor Ed Lee, District Attorney George Gascón and Supervisors David Chiu, John Avalos, London Breed, Malia Cohen, Jane Kim, Scott Wiener and Norman Yee immediately condemned the advertisements as racist and "Islamophobic."

Muni, which believes a First Amendment court decision obligates it to accept the advertising, promptly said it would dedicate the $5,000 in ad revenue to the Human Rights Commission for a study of the impact of discrimination on Arab and Islamic communities in San Francisco.

The transit agency will also run its own "Peace" ad campaign that will appear inside 100 buses and feature messages against discrimination and promoting respect and love.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Back in August, without warning, Muni ran ads from the same group, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled as a hate group. The ad labeled Israel's opponents "savages." The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency was deluged with complaints, and eventually ran disclaimer ads next to some of the criticized ads, and donated the $3,800 in ad revenue to the Human Rights Commission.

This time, city leaders responded more quickly. But, of course, the controversial group will again end up getting far more attention than most ads that appear on Muni buses.

- Michael Cabanatuan

A marketing moment: The idea of a run across the new (and old) Bay Bridge over Labor Day weekend has barely been mentioned - there's not yet an official distance, course or time - but that hasn't prevented entrepreneurs from getting a head start on cashing in on the planned footrace.

See Jane Run, a San Francisco-headquartered women's running retailer, is offering a 14-week training course - for $150 - to prepare for what it surmises will be 10-kilometer and half-marathon races. Event planners and bridge officials have hinted at those distances as well, but nothing's official yet and whether races happen may depend in part on independent fundraising.

"Delight in the thrill of making history crossing the new Bay Bridge," says an ad for the training program.

Participants get weekly training runs starting in June, lessons in injury prevention and fitness, parties and running gear. And, perhaps, the thrill of running across the new Bay Bridge before it opens to cars.

However, Jane adds "a small disclaimer" to the training program: "We will ... target a different goal race if an unforeseeable event arises beyond our control prohibiting these particular races from taking place."

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., says it is time for the U.S. to stop being politically correct and focus its search on radical Islamists in Muslim communities.

King tells Politico that while most Muslims are not terrorists, the international base for terrorism against the United States happens to be radical Islam.

"There have been 16 terror plots against New York [since Sept. 11, 2001], all Islamist-based,” King told Politico. “We’re at war with Islamic terrorism.”

He said terrorism is coming from people with the Muslim community, “just like the mafia comes from Italian communities,” and that’s why counter-terrorism needs to purposely focus on Muslims.

King said he believes the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects are radical Islamists. The two, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are of Chechen heritage. They have been described by friends and acquaintances as secular Muslims, but recent YouTube postings by Tamerlan indicate a following for an imam who preaches the virtues of martyrdom.

King said that communities need to become more vigilant, as U.S. efforts have weakened al-Qaida and other radical groups’ ability to strike at America from the outside. People living in the U.S., he said, can more easily attack with the help of groups outside the country.

New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly believes the Boston Marathon bombings were a type of jihad attack that is on the rise in the United States.

“I see this as an ongoing pattern. We’ve seen these radicalized young men do, or try to do, similar things,’’ Kelly told Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show.’’

“We’ve had 16 plots here against the city, many of them involving young, disaffected men who are committed to killing Americans.’’

Kelly said those threats have remained “relatively constant’’ and “we don’t see it waning.’’

“What we do see is a shift from the sort of organized, top-down direction than we saw early on after 9/11 from al-Qaida to a more free-form, do-what-you-can approach,’’ Kelly said.

“[That’s] where individuals will get, in essence, radicalized on the Internet. They usually have someone who is a sanctioner that leads them along or mentors them.’’

He pointed to a 2007 study conducted by two of the NYPD’s top intelligence analysts that looked at the radicalization process of future terrorists.

“[They are] what they call unremarkable young men who go into four phases of jihadization,’’ Kelly said.

“They’re looking for a place in the world. They’re looking for meaning, looking for a cause. … They decide to get jihad. And after that decision is made, they can act pretty quickly.’’

Kelly said security in New York City was heightened immediately following the Boston Marathon explosions last week, but has since returned to normal levels.

“We see ourselves at a higher level all the time. We invest heavily in counterterrorism. We have 1,000 police officers … every day doing counterterrorism duties,’’ Kelly said.

“That’s certainly a higher number, percentage-wise … than any city I’m aware of. But, you know, there are no guarantees in this business. We know that big cities are vulnerable. We have an open society and things can happen here.’’

Kelly said it is still unclear as to whether the two brothers implicated in the bombings acted on their own.

“That is probably still an open question. … Two people are in custody who sort of helped their cause after they knew that they had committed the bombing,’’ he said.

“I’d like to have a little more time go by before we make a final determination of that. But the initial indication is that they did it on their own.’’

Kelly is monitoring the breaking terrorism case in Canada — in which authorities Monday arrested two men for allegedly plotting an al-Qaida attack on a passenger train traveling between Canada and the United States.

“We have police agencies involved in Amtrak in the northeastern part of the country,’’ Kelly said.

“We have almost daily communication. So, the protection, if you will, on the railroad lines in the country is probably as good as it’s ever been. No guarantees there, either, but we’re certainly working in a coordinated fashion.’’

Charles Krauthammer says it’s “comical and certainly embarrassing” that President Barack Obama will not use words such as jihadist and Islamist in reference to the Boston Marathon bombings.

“The lengths to which he will go to avoid telling us the truth about the enemy is becoming comical and certainly embarrassing,” Krauthammer said Tuesday on Fox News on “The O’Reilly Factor.” “For example, forget about the use the word jihadist — he will never use that, but he refuses to use the word Islamist, which is used throughout the Muslim world. It’s used by journalists, by authors, on the street, in Parliament, in Egypt. It’s used in Lebanon. It’s used everywhere by Muslims.”

He continued: “And yet Obama won’t touch it because he refuses to use any words that might imply a connection between radical Islam and terrorism, which as anybody who is over the age of 9 knows is the single greatest cause of terror in the world today.”

Krauthammer said that other historic leaders didn’t shy away from clearly defining their enemies.

“It matters because if you want to mobilize the population, if you want to give them the courage to persist and to carry on a fight which should be a difficult fight, it could go on for a generation. You have to be clear with your own people about who the enemy is. Churchill did not speak about German extremists. He talked about the Nazi menace. He described it in detail. FDR didn’t speak about extremists in Tokyo. He talked about the Japanese imperialism and its threat to the whole region,” Krauthammer said.

He added: “You have to be able to be honest with the people if you are going to get any support. Otherwise, you get an event here, an event there and you say, ‘We can’t jump to any conclusions?’ Within three days everybody understands that these brothers were jihadists.”

Authorities say Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother Tamerlan, 26, are the two suspects in the bombings. Tamerlan was killed following an overnight police chase in suburban Boston on Thursday into early Friday morning. Dzhokhar is recovering in a Boston hospital and authorities are questioning him. The brothers are of Chechen descent and Muslim.

Michael GoodwinAccording to a relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Chechen immigrant believed there is “oppression of the Muslim population around the world.” The relative described Tsarnaev to The New York Times this way: “He was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.”

Bombing the Boston Marathon was the Tsarnaev brothers’ way of defending Islam. To say their argument boomeranged, however, isn’t fully true. Not as long as the Obama administration puts religious blinders on the defenders of our homeland.

At its core, the Boston case reveals two fundamental truths. One, not all Muslims are terrorists. Two, in recent times, almost all terrorists are Muslims.

Willie Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money is. Police didn’t catch him by staking out lemonade stands.

By the same logic, preventing terrorism requires close scrutiny of Muslim men leaning toward violent jihad. Had they followed that logic, the FBI could have prevented the bombing.

But with each passing day, it becomes maddeningly clear that political correctness was complicit in the failure. President Obama’s stubborn refusal to connect the dots to Islam isn’t just a personal tic. It reflects the policy he has spread throughout the bureaucracy, including law enforcement and the military.

At the least, orders to “see no Islam evil” created extra hurdles for those trying to keep America safe. At the worst, they opened the door to the bombers.

The moral of the story is that political correctness kills.

We already knew that from the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, where 13 service members allegedly were murdered by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Witnesses say he shouted, “God is great,” in Arabic as he started a massacre that also left 30 other people injured.

Although Army brass and anti-terror officials knew Hasan, a psychiatrist, was a radicalized Islamist, they took no action for fear of violating his rights. His colleagues called him belligerent, paranoid and schizoid, but he was promoted. When Hasan communicated about suicide bombings with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born terror leader living in Yemen, his superiors remained silent.

All this happened when George W. Bush was in the White House.

After Hasan allegedly turned Fort Hood into a bloodbath in November 2009, the Obama administration termed the shooting “workplace violence” instead of a terrorism, an outrageous designation that remains in place. In a remark that still takes the breath away, the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey Jr., declared that, “as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

The US later droned Awlaki, making for a curious double standard. If he was worthy of death, wasn’t Hasan at least worthy of scrutiny?

Which brings us back to Boston. In March 2011, Russian officials warned the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was “a follower of radical Islam” who had “changed drastically since 2010.” They also knew he was planning a trip to a hotbed of terror in Russia.

That’s an incredible amount of detail. The FBI has said many things in its defense, some conflicting, but closed the case because agents found no evidence of terrorism or a crime.

That’s a non sequitur. The Russians didn’t accuse Tsarnaev of committing a crime; they said he was a radical Islamist. Why did the FBI limit its concern to actual crimes?

The emerging reason is that bureau guidelines eliminate Islam and other religions as a red flag. In this case, making an actual crime the threshold meant Tsarnaev’s links to radical Islam were ignored or downplayed.

Blinders in place, the screw-up continued. The frustrated Russians gave the same warning to the CIA six months later and added Tsarnaev’s mother was also a threat. Again nothing was done, except both were put on a list with 700,000 other people. He went to Russia in 2012 and stayed for six months.

If the Russians were so clueless, how did they know his travel plans a year in advance? And The Washington Post reports that a source warned the Joint Terrorism Task Force that, after Tsarnaev returned to the United States, he had become radicalized — but still nothing happened.

After all that, the FBI continues to defend its conduct, with an official telling The Washington Post that “since there was no derogatory information, there was no reason to suggest that additional action was warranted.”

This is worse than scary — it is nuts. By definition, the information about Tsarnaev was “derogatory.” It was also true.

The Russians knew he was dangerous two years ago. The FBI figured it out only after the bombs went off.

Abassi’s plan did not materialize beyond discussions, but he is also being linked to Chiheb Esseghaier, one of two Canadian residents arrested in the alleged plot to derail a Via passenger train.

CBC News said American investigators have accused Abassi of fraudulently applying for a visa to stay in the U.S. to “facilitate an act of international terrorism.”

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that Abassi “had an evil purpose for seeking to remain in the United States – to commit acts of terror and develop a network of terrorists here, and to use this country as a base to support the efforts of terrorists internationally.”

Abassi traveled to the U.S. in March, according to Canadian authorities, but did not enter the country directly from Canada. Authorities say it’s unclear how he entered the U.S.

Abassi’s plan did not materialize beyond discussions, but he is also being linked to Chiheb Esseghaier, one of two Canadian residents arrested in the alleged plot to derail a Via passenger train.

CBC News said American investigators have accused Abassi of fraudulently applying for a visa to stay in the U.S. to “facilitate an act of international terrorism.”

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that Abassi “had an evil purpose for seeking to remain in the United States – to commit acts of terror and develop a network of terrorists here, and to use this country as a base to support the efforts of terrorists internationally.”

Abassi traveled to the U.S. in March, according to Canadian authorities, but did not enter the country directly from Canada. Authorities say it’s unclear how he entered the U.S.

Bikinis banned at 2013 Miss World pageant in IndonesiaPublished June 06, 2013Associated Press

Contestants pose after the swimwear round of beauty contest Sananda Tilottama 2009 in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata June 9, 2008. (Reuters)

Miss World has axed the famed bikinis from this year's pageant in Indonesia, replacing the skimpy swimsuits with conservative beach sarongs amid mounting protests from hard-line Muslim groups, organizers said Thursday.

All of the more than 130 contestants will be required to wear Bali's traditional long sarongs instead of the sexy bikinis that are historically part of the competition, said Adjie S. Soeratmadjie of the RCTI, the official broadcaster and local organizer.

The pageant will be held Sept. 28 on the resort island of Bali and in Sentul, an area near the capital, Jakarta. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country.

"There will no bikini in this year's Miss World pageant to respect our traditional customs and values," Soeratmadjie said, adding that the London-based Miss World Organization is on board with the decision."This is a sensitive issue in Indonesia. We have discussed it since last year and they have agreed," he said.

The chairwoman of the Miss World Organization, Julia Morley, confirmed that none of the 137 contestants would wear a bikini.

"Indonesia is designing for us a very beautiful one-piece beachwear, and I'm very happy with them," she told The Associated Press by phone from London, adding that the pageant will include a special beachwear fashion show.

"I don't think Indonesia is the only country that has that culture," Morley said. "But we like to work in the manner respectful to every country, and I cannot see why when you go to somebody's country you should not behave respectfully."

The pageant began in the 1950s, and the first winner was crowned in a two-piece bathing suit.

Soeratmadjie said the sarong would be made creatively and designed specifically for the event.

Controversy over the pageant has been mounting in Indonesia, which has a reputation as a tolerant, pluralist society that respects freedom of expression.

Clerics of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, said they would send a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to demand that the beauty pageant be canceled.

"That contest is just an excuse to show women's body parts that should remain covered," said Mukri Aji, a prominent cleric from West Java province's MUI branch. "It's against Islamic teachings."

Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, a hardline Islamic group, said it planned to stage a protest and called for the competition to be moved elsewhere.

Most Muslims in Indonesia, a secular country of 240 million people, are moderate, but a small extremist fringe has become more vocal in recent years.

They have pushed through controversial laws — including an anti-pornography bill — and have been known to attack anything perceived as blasphemous, from transvestites and bars to "deviant" religious sects.

Lady Gaga was forced to cancel her sold-out concert in Indonesia in May following threats by Islamic hard-liners, who called her a "devil worshipper." Jennifer Lopez toned down her sexy outfits and dance moves during a show in Jakarta last December.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan is expected to tell a military judge on Tuesday how he plans to argue he was protecting the Taliban when he opened fire on dozens of people at the facility in 2009.

The Army psychiatrist could face the death penalty if convicted of premeditated murder on charges he killed 13 people and wounded 32 in the worst shooting rampage on a U.S. military post.

Hasan, 42, told the presiding judge in the case, Colonel Tara Osborn, last week that he was defending the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban and its leader Mullah Omar when he fired on soldiers in a readiness facility, many of whom were getting ready to deploy to Iraq.

At the time of the shooting, Fort Hood was a major deployment point for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hasan had been preparing to leave for Afghanistan with a unit assigned to help soldiers deal with mental issues when authorities said he opened fire on a medical station where soldiers go for exams and vaccines.

The accused shooter has not explained how his actions might be construed as protection of the Taliban.

Osborn may issue a ruling on whether Hasan, who will represent himself at his court-martial, can use the "defense of others" argument. She also could rule on his request for a three-month delay in the trial, now set to begin on July 1.

A Fort Hood spokesman said it was "entirely up to the judge" whether she will issue rulings or simply hear testimony on Tuesday.

The hearing was rescheduled from last week, when Osborn said both sides were late getting court filings to her and it was "obvious" they needed more time to prepare.

She released the prospective jurors until further notice, delaying jury selection until after the hearing.

Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot five times during the attack and lost sight in his right eye, expressed frustration at the repeated delays in the case.

"Throughout this whole process, he's been treated like he is the victim, and we have been treated as if we really don't matter," Lunsford told Reuters.

Richard Rosen, a former prosecutor at Fort Hood and currently a law professor at Texas Tech University, said he expects Osborn will reject Hasan's "defense of others" argument.

"Hasan's claim is like an American soldier shooting fellow GIs during World War Two, and then asserting that he was only trying to protect the Nazi leadership," Rosen said.

"Defense of others is flatly inapplicable," he said. "There was no immediate threat to any others from the victims of Hasan's attack."

Anwar al-Awlaki gives a religious lecture in an unknown location in this still image taken from video released by Intelwire.com on September 30, 2011. (Reuters)

On the eve of an infamous presentation Anwar al-Awlaki gave at the Pentagon in 2002, the Al Qaeda operative was busy preparing -- with a prostitute he paid $400 for at a Washington hotel.

It was one of more than a half-dozen liaisons Awlaki had with prostitutes between late 2001 and early 2002, while he was under FBI surveillance, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch and reviewed exclusively by Fox News.

The documents shed new light on the double life the American-born Awlaki was leading, while living in the Washington area and working as an imam at a mosque in Falls Church, Va.

In the years before he became publicly associated with Al Qaeda and was targeted for death by the U.S. government, Awlaki was by turns welcomed and investigated by different arms of the government -- not just over his radical ties, but his predilection for prostitutes.

Yet there is no indication he was ever brought up on charges, leading Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton to question why the cleric seemed to have a "protected status."

One document obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, was a June 2002 memo from FBI Assistant Director Pasquale D'Amuro detailing Awlaki's encounters with prostitutes in the D.C. area. The memo appeared to propose charges against him, claiming he spent $2,320 on seven different occasions between Nov. 5, 2001, and Feb. 4, 2002.

It described in detail an interview with the "escort" who saw him on Feb. 4, the day before he was scheduled to have lunch at the Pentagon as an invited guest.

She claimed she had a 5 p.m. appointment with him that day, and when he arrived at her room, "she looked through the 'peep' hole ... and thought to herself that he looked like Osama bin Laden."

She later identified him as Awlaki.

He paid $400 for sex, the memo said. He was described by the escort as "very polite." Awlaki, who has a record with prostitutes -- he was booked in San Diego on charges of soliciting prostitutes in the late '90s -- also told the escort that he likes to use escort services when he travels to Florida, according to the memo.

The memo described in graphic detail the services rendered for Awlaki during that period. One prostitute described a December 2001 encounter where Awlaki paid $300, in order to watch "as she engaged in erotic behavior and stimulated herself."

They met again, for the same activities, in mid-January 2002, according to the document.

Fox News was first to report in 2010 that Awlaki was invited to the Pentagon within months of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as part of an outreach effort with supposedly moderate Muslims.

Awlaki would later emerge as a major mouthpiece for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, being linked to recent attacks including the Fort Hood shooting as well as the attempted Christmas Day bombing on a Detroit-bound flight.

He was the first American known to be included on the government's kill-or-capture list. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September 2011.

One document obtained by Judicial Watch also depicted what was described by the group as a "computer database record" retrieved in February 2002, before his Pentagon lunch. It listed Awlaki's name and included the warning to "approach with caution," listing him under the heading of "terrorist organization member."

Fitton said the new documents raise questions about the relationship between Awlaki and the U.S. government.

"One can fairly conclude that the al-Qaeda mastermind had some type of 'protected status' with our government -- despite his terrorist and criminal activities," Fitton said. "We knew from days after the attacks on the World Trade Centers that (Awlaki) was a dangerous character, so why did it take the government ten years to bring him to justice?"

Fox News asked the FBI for comment, specifically on why Awlaki apparently was not prosecuted and whether the information on his alleged liaisons was shared with the Pentagon. The FBI has not yet commented on the documents.

Reports that top-level communications among Al Qaeda operatives prompted the ongoing security alert affecting U.S. embassies around the world have raised even more questions about the Obama administration's repeated claims that Al Qaeda is "on the run."

The assertion that Al Qaeda -- with the death of Usama bin Laden and of many of his lieutenants -- is a shell of its former self was a linchpin of the 2012 Obama campaign. Even with the ongoing security threat, the State Department insisted as recently as Tuesday that the "Al Qaeda core has been weakened, decimated," despite lingering concerns about the affiliates.

The Daily Beast reported Wednesday that sources said it was a massive conference call of more than 20 Al Qaeda leaders that tipped off the U.S. to the alleged terror plot. In The Daily Beast report, one intelligence officer reportedly described the communication of top Al Qaeda leaders as "like a meeting of the Legion of Doom."

Fox News was told by multiple senior military and intelligence sources that reports of a conference call were "not credible." One intelligence official said it was "far-fetched" to think that many leaders would consider a conference call of that size secure -- the official speculated it was more likely the operatives were talking in some kind of chat room.

Fox News has confirmed, though, that an intercepted communication between Al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri and the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula did lead to the precautionary measures.

Thomas Sanderson, senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Transnational Threats Project, also told FoxNews.com he's "dubious" about the claim that more than 20 operatives were holding a conference call.

But he said that if even one core Al Qaeda member was on it, "that shows that even a decimated Al Qaeda core can still cause trouble for the U.S."

"It shows that despite what we may have heard, that Al Qaeda core has diminished ... they're very much alive and well," Josh Rogin, who co-wrote the article, told Fox News. "It's a much more cohesive organization than we previously realized."

The claim of Al Qaeda's decline has been challenged over the past week, as the administration scrambled to close 19 embassies and consulates through Saturday in response to the threat. The State Department issued a global travel alert on Friday and on Tuesday ordered many U.S. government personnel out of Yemen, which may be the epicenter of the threat.

On Tuesday, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., while praising the administration's response to the threat, chastised its claims that Al Qaeda is weakened.

"I'm very critical of President Obama for trying to act as if Al Qaida has been defeated, they've been decimated," he told Fox News. "It's only a pre-9/11 attitude we have. The fact is, Al Qaeda -- yes, their central command has been hit very hard, but they morphed and metastasized. They now have affiliates all over."

King described the policy of targeting Al Qaeda leaders while at the same time telling the American people the group is defeated as "schizophrenic."

The security warnings are fueled not only by the intercepted communications but also recent jailbreaks in several countries that have allowed dozens of extremist operatives and their supporters back onto the streets.

To date, the U.S. government's response to the threat appears to be another series of drone strikes.

One drone strike killed seven suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen on Wednesday. It was the fifth such strike in less than two weeks in Yemen.

Officials told The Washington Post that the campaign is related to the intelligence regarding an Al Qaeda plot.

The Yemeni government also announced Wednesday that they disrupted Al Qaeda plots against oil pipelines and an important port.

A senior U.S. official told Fox News that these plots likely were "part and parcel of a larger operation the AQAP has in the works." This official said despite the disruption of these plots, "there is an ongoing threat beyond Yemen."

"They may have disrupted an element but concern remains about a larger operation out there," the official said.

Aside from the drone strikes, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News that there are currently about 1,400 Marines aboard U.S. Naval vessels off the coast of Yemen. They have been there for some time, but are in a position to help if needed.

Walid Phares, Fox News Middle East and terrorism analyst, suggested the Obama administration is still relying too much on drone strikes to take out terror operatives who end up being replaced by other operatives.

The solution, he said, is "terminating what produces them."

"What produces Al Qaeda is the ideology. We're not waging war on the ideology -- we actually, the administration that is, is not even recognizing that there is one," Phares said.

President Obama lauded his anti-terror achievements during the presidential campaign. "We said that we would go after Al Qaeda, and they are on the run and bin Laden is dead," he said at a Sept. 28 campaign event in Washington.

Obama, appearing on the "Tonight Show" on Tuesday, defended his administration's response to the latest threat.

"It's significant enough that we're taking every precaution. ... And whenever we see a threat stream that we think is specific enough that we can take some specific precautions within a certain timeframe, then we do so," Obama said.

Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) -- The court-martial of admitted Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Hasan came to a screeching halt Wednesday as the lawyers assigned to back up his defense asked to withdraw from active participation in the case.

Hasan is representing himself on charges that he shot and killed 13 people and wounded 32 in the November 2009 rampage at the installation, near Killeen, Texas. But the presiding judge, Col. Tara Osborn, ruled before the court-martial began that defense lawyers could act as stand-by counsel during the proceedings.

Osborn was holding a closed-door hearing with defense lawyers and Hasan late Wednesday morning, and recessed the court-martial until Thursday.

The lawyers' roles had been limited to helping Hasan file motions and coaching him on procedural matters. But before testimony could resume Wednesday morning, Lt. Col. Kris Poppe told Osborn that Hasan was "working in concert with the prosecution to achieve a death sentence."

"It becomes clear that his goal is to remove impediments and obstacles and is working towards a death penalty," Poppe said. He and the two other lawyers said they were still willing to defend Hasan if needed but couldn't ethically stand by to help him at this point.

What to expect at Ft. Hood trial Hasan objected to Poppe's characterization, calling it "a twist of the facts." But he refused to submit his objection in writing, a move that Osborn requested to avoid revealing privileged information, and insisted on being heard in open court.

Witnesses describes horror of shooting

Testimony began Tuesday at Fort Hood, with Hasan telling the military court, "The evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter." The Army psychiatrist, who was paralyzed by a police bullet during the rampage, listened impassively as one of the first witnesses recounted the horror unleashed that November day at a processing center for soldiers heading to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford stared hard at Hasan, appearing to brace for a cross-examination from the man who had admitted to shooting him seven times. But Hasan just stared back.

Hasan: 'I am the shooter'

The courtroom turned silent as Lunsford was called as a witness. He was the first of several survivors scheduled to testify against Hasan.

Lunsford recounted how the gunman rose from a chair in the processing center, shouted "Allahu Akbar," pulled out a pistol and began shooting.

"It was a state of panic," Lunsford said.

Lunsford, a health care specialist, described how his friend and colleague, physician's assistant Michael Cahill, tried to hit Hasan with a chair to stop the shooting; Hasan shot him dead. Soldiers tried to flee or take cover inside the processing center as Hasan fired dozens of shots.

As Lunsford was checking behind him, "Major Hasan is turning the weapon on me," he said. "He has a laser on his weapon and it goes across my line of sight and I blink. In that time, he discharges his weapon. The first round, I'm hit in the head."

A second shot caught Lunsford in the back. He decided to play dead for a while before changing his mind and deciding to run for the door. He made it out of the building but was shot five more times outside, he testified.

Hasan continued shooting at Lunsford even as he was receiving first aid outside the processing center, before police arrived. Officers shot and wounded Hasan, ending the rampage and leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

After the prosecution finished questioning Lunsford, the judge asked Hasan whether he had any questions for the witness.

"I have no questions," Hasan said.

Hasan also declined to question Michelle Harper, who worked at the deployment center and was inside when the shooting began. Prosecutors played a recording of her 911 call, where she pleaded for help.

Scheduled to go to Afghanistan

A U.S.-born citizen of Palestinian descent, Hasan had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan before the killings. Prosecutors hope to show that the devout Muslim had undergone a "progressive radicalization," giving presentations in defense of suicide bombings and about soldiers conflicted between military service and their religion when such conflicts result in crime.

Hasan did not want to deploy to fight against other Muslims and believed "that he had a jihad duty to kill as many soldiers as possible," said Col. Michael Mulligan, the lead prosecutor in the case.

Investigators found 146 spent shell casings in the room where the attack began, Mulligan said. Hasan carried two laser-sighted pistols and 420 rounds of ammunition, his pockets lined with paper towels to muffle the sounds of the magazines banging together, he said.

Hasan told the panel in his opening statement, "We mujahedeen are trying to establish the perfect religion." But, he added, "I apologize for the mistakes I made in this endeavor."

The mujahedeen consider themselves as warriors who defend the Islamic faith.

Witness: 'His punishment will come'

Hasan told his family he had been taunted after the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. Investigations that followed the killings found he had been communicating via e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American radical cleric killed by a U.S. drone attack in 2011.

The case was first set to begin in March 2012, but was delayed repeatedly, notably over a previous judge's unsuccessful demand that the beard Hasan has grown while in custody be forcibly shaved.

Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in 2009 in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, was sentenced to death Wednesday by a military jury after just two hours of deliberation.

Hasan, who offered little defense, sat motionless as the jury president read the verdict. Hasan has said he acted to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American aggression and never denied being the gunman. In opening statements, he acknowledged to the jury that he pulled the trigger in a crowded waiting room where troops were getting final medical checkups before deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hasan had one final chance Wednesday to give a closing argument before his case went to the jury, but he declined -- continuing an absent defense that he has used since his trial began three weeks ago. The panel unanimously ruled that Hasan must forfeit all pay and allowances and be dismissed from the service.

The Army psychiatrist's behavior has only stoked suspicion that his ultimate goal is martyrdom, in the form of a death sentence that would allow him to fulfill what prosecutors have described as a "jihad duty" under his Islamic faith.

The lead prosecutor, Col. Mike Mulligan, told jurors Wednesday morning that history was full of instances of death in the name of religion. But he said it would be "wrong and unsupportive" to tie Hasan's actions to a wider cause

"You cannot offer what you don't own; you cannot give away what is not yours. He can never be a martyr because he has nothing to give…..Do not be misled; do not be confused; do not be fooled. He is not giving his life. We are taking his life. This is not his gift to God, it's his debt to society. He will not now and will not ever be a martyr. He is a criminal, a cold-blooded murderer. On 5 November he did not leave this earth, he remained to pay a price. To pay a debt. The debt he owes is his life," Mulligan said.

FORT HOOD GUNMAN MAY FACE LONG WAIT FOR MARTYRDOM

Mulligan focused on the victims, insisting that Hasan deserved to be executed for the attack at the Texas military base that also wounded more than 30 people.

A few minutes after Mulligan finished, Hasan said he had no closing statement.

Hasan has been representing himself during the trial, and his lack of defense has caused problems with the military defense attorneys ordered to help him.

But legal experts say he has a nearly unshakable right under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to represent himself. The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, has repeatedly warned him about the danger of being his own attorney, and the three lawyers assigned to help him have tried to step in at least twice.

Osborn denied their latest request Tuesday, and twice used the same metaphor.

"Maj. Hasan is the captain of his own ship," she said.

Any lawyer trying to save Hasan would have a daunting task. In two days of sentencing, prosecutors called widows, parents and other loved ones of the people Hasan killed. They offered a picture of their overwhelming grief and struggle to move forward after his attack. At least one juror appeared visibly emotional during parts of testimony.

Osborn revealed some of what Hasan's standby attorneys wanted to tell jurors as she reviewed and denied their motion. Among that evidence includes his good behavior in custody before trial and his offer before trial to plead guilty -- which was rejected under military rules because prosecutors are seeking a death sentence.

But Hasan was dismissive of his standby attorneys' attempts. He repeatedly objected, and as one of them asked to argue the motion, he commented that he had an "overzealous defense counsel."

Hasan rested his case shortly after more than a dozen widows, mothers, fathers, children and other relatives of those killed testified about their lives since the attack. They talked of eerily quiet homes, lost futures, alcoholism and the unmatched fear of hearing a knock on the door.

The same jurors who convicted Hasan last week had just two options: either agree unanimously that Hasan should die or watch the 42-year-old get an automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole.

Hasan could become the first American soldier executed in more than half a century. But because the military justice system requires a lengthy appeals process, years or even decades could pass before he is put to death.

For nearly four years, the federal government has sought to execute Hasan, believing that any sentence short of a lethal injection would deny justice to the families of the dead and the survivors who had believed they were safe behind the gates of the Texas base.

And for just as long, Hasan has seemed content to go to the death chamber for his beliefs. He fired his own attorneys to represent himself, barely put up a defense during a three-week trial and made almost no effort to have his life spared.

Mulligan reminded the jury that Hasan was a trained doctor yet opened fire on defenseless comrades. He "only dealt death," the prosecutor said, so the only appropriate sentence is death.

He was never allowed to argue in front of the jury that the shooting was necessary to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders from American troops. During the trial, Hasan leaked documents to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers in 2010 that he could "still be a martyr" if executed.

When Hasan began shooting, the troops were standing in long lines to receive immunizations and doctors' clearance.

Thirteen people were killed and more than were 30 wounded. All but one of the dead were soldiers, including a pregnant private who curled on the floor and pleaded for her baby's life.

The attack ended only when Hasan was shot in the back by an officer responding to the shooting. Hasan is now paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair.

The military called nearly 90 witnesses at the trial and more during the sentencing phase. But Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Even with his life at stake during the sentencing hearing, he made no attempt to question witnesses and gave no final statement to jurors.

Death sentences are rare in the military, which has just five other prisoners on death row. The cases trigger a long appeals process. And the president must give final authorization before any service member is executed. No American soldier has been executed since 1961.

Hasan spent weeks planning the Nov. 5, 2009, attack, including buying the handgun and videotaping a sales clerk showing him how to change the magazine.

He later plunked down $10 at a gun range outside Austin and asked for pointers on how to reload with speed and precision. An instructor said he told Hasan to practice while watching TV or sitting on his couch with the lights off.

When the time came, Hasan stuffed paper towels in the pockets of his cargo pants to muffle the rattling of extra ammo and avoid arousing suspicion. Soldiers testified that Hasan's rapid reloading made it all but impossible to stop him. Investigators recovered 146 shell casings in the medical building and dozens more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

In court, Hasan never played the role of an angry extremist. He didn't get agitated or raise his voice. He addressed the judge as "ma'am" and occasionally whispered "thank you" when prosecutors, in accordance with the rules of evidence, handed Hasan red pill bottles that rattled with bullet fragments removed from those who were shot.

Three finalists barred from competing in the Miss Malyasia World pageant have issued an apology, addressing claims that their presence in the beauty contest was insulting to Islam.

Three of the four dropped contestants -- Wafa Johanna De Korte, Sara Amelia Bernard, Miera Sheikh and Kathrina Binti Ridzuan -- said they respect Malay culture and did not intend to hurt any religion, according to a report in the Times of India.

The women issued their formal apology to the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) after the National Fatwa Council issued an edict against them, citing the Administration of Islamic Law act of 1996, which states that participating, organizing or contributing to any type of beauty contest is not permissible and a sin for Muslims.

The Malay Mail reported that Islamic authorities deemed the contestants' desire to represent Malaysia in an international beauty contest illegal.

The organizer of this year’s Miss Malaysia World contest, Datuk Anna Lim, was disappointed that the country could not be represented by Malays in an international beauty pageant, according to the Malay Mail report.

The report did not make it clear whether a fourth disqualified contestant would apologize.

The women were told if they competed in the event, they could face a fine or jail time if convicted, the Malay Mail reported.

Boko Haram and Benghazi may have something in common, according to Politico Magazine: Obama administration efforts to convince the public it had successfully forced al-Qaida into retreat.

"There are very likely real links between the Obama administration's handling of Boko Haram, the Nigerian terrorist group, and the violent extremists behind the Benghazi tragedy," Michael Hirsh, the magazine's national editor, wrote in a column.

"According to current and former U.S. officials, the reluctance of Hillary Clinton's State Department to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization in the summer of 2012 was no isolated case; it was partly rooted in a larger effort by the Obama administration to narrowly define al-Qaida and deemphasize the rise of its new affiliates, especially in Africa," according to Politico's Hirsh.

Hirsh argued that even if there is a link, it would not be conclusive proof that there was a cover-up regarding Benghazi, or that it was wrong to keep Boko Haram off the official list of designated terrorist organizations, despite the group's subsequent recent kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls.

Nevertheless, the majority of people involved in the debate inside the administration regarding the status of Boko Haram was of the opinion that there were strong links to al-Qaida and encouraged the State Department to formalize the connection on the list.

But, one U.S. counterterrorism official familiar with the discussions at the time told Politico that there was a "real reluctance" to expand the war against al-Qaida to "other parts of the world, especially Africa, and a desire to avoid mission creep."

The timing of the debate also coincided with genuine concern by the president that the war against al-Qaida and its affiliates had become too broad and ill-defined, even in places such as Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Hirsh said.

"It was in this super-stringent context that the administration approached Boko Haram and the various Islamist threats emerging in northern Africa, including the groups ultimately responsible for the Benghazi attack," Hirsh wrote.

"This attitude was reflected broadly in speeches by Obama warning that America must get off a 'perpetual wartime footing,' and declaring that 'core al-Qaida is a shell of its former self.' In a landmark speech at National Defense University last year, Obama said, 'We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us…. Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight.'"

Hirsh added, "That's Obama's counterterrorism philosophy in a nutshell, and it helps explain the administration's effort to blame the Benghazi violence mainly on widespread protests against a video lampooning the Prophet Mohammad rather than 'a failure of policy,' as Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes put it in his recently released and controversial memo.

"It has also given rise to Republican charges, unsubstantiated though they remain, that the administration covered up what it knew about the Benghazi attackers to further the president's case that he was defeating al-Qaida."

Hirsh says that in some ways, the administration has already admitted that it had underestimated the growing Islamist threat in Libya that lead to the Benghazi attack, as evidenced by conclusions by Clinton's Accountability Review Board and in little-noticed remarks she has made.

It also appears that the administration was naively hoping that the rise of new jihadist groups would remain mostly engaged in local conflicts, which also served to support Obama's contention that the United States should tone down the rhetoric regarding a "war" with radical Islamists, and view it instead as an inevitable, but manageable, law-enforcement problem, Hirsh said.

"The fact remains that it is hard, if not impossible, to separate the war against al-Qaida from the legal targeting of other jihadist groups suspected of links to al-Qaida. The decision to designate such a group is often a political one, sometimes taken to appease a foreign government—and, sometimes, the American public," Hirsh concluded.

Representatives of Britain First hand out leaflets and bibles to Muslim worshippers as part of 'Christian crusade' campaign

Helen Pidd, northern editor, and Declan Lloyd

Tuesday 13 May 2014 12.28 BST

Police in Bradford and Scotland have launched an investigation after a group of uniformed far-right activists visited mosques over the weekend.

Representatives of Britain First, an offshoot of the British National party that is contesting this month's local and European elections, carried out what they called a Christian crusade, handing out leaflets and army issue Bibles to Muslim worshippers.

In Yorkshire, members of the group wore matching flatcaps and green jackets embossed with the party logo, which features a crown and the legend "Taking our country back".

They filmed themselves telling one Muslim man to "reject the false prophet Mohammed and read the Bible", and they visited the campaign office of Nazam Azam, a Muslim Labour councillor running for re-election in Bradford, demanding action on "Muslim grooming gangs".

Bradford's lord mayor, Khadim Hussain, said 10 Britain First representatives turned up at his house on Saturday and intimidated two of his daughters.

Zulfi Karim, secretary of the Bradford Council of Mosques, said the action marked a new wave of extremist action and was co-ordinated with almost military precision. He is due to travel to London on Thursday to meet Stephen Williams, a Liberal Democrat minister with responsibility for community cohesion.

A Sudanese court sentenced a pregnant Christian woman to death by hanging this week for allegedly renouncing Islam, and a judge also ordered her to be lashed for committing adultery by marrying a man outside her religion.

Meriam Ibrahim, 27, was convicted of apostasy Thursday after a judge determined that she abandoned Islam and broke Sharia law by marrying a Christian man. Ibrahim, who is eight months pregnant, failed to renounce her Christianity under the court's three-day deadline, which expired Thursday, according to USA Today.

Even though Ibrahim was raised by a single mother who is Orthodox Christian, the court still considers her a Muslim because that was her father's religion. Under Sudanese law, Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men.

"Conversion from Islam is a crime punishable by death, suspected converts to Christianity face societal pressures, and government security personnel intimidate and sometimes torture those suspected of conversion," the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its 2014 report.

The Christian hanging sentence brought about protest from Amnesty International.

"The decision of a Sudanese court to sentence a heavily pregnant Sudanese Christian woman to death by hanging for 'apostasy' and flogging for 'adultery' is truly abhorrent," the global rights organization said in a news release.

Manar Idriss, an Amnesty International Sudan researcher, said in the statement that Ibrahim's sentence is a violation of international law.

"The fact that a woman has been sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is appalling and abhorrent," Idriss wrote. "Adultery and apostasy are acts which should not be considered crimes at all. It is flagrant breach of international human rights law."

Haram Othman, one of Ibrahim's attorneys, told CNN that they plan to appeal the decision within 15 days.

The United States is in "big trouble ahead" because of President Barack Obama's "refusal to recognize reality" and his emphasis on getting the United States to withdraw from the Middle East, according to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Iraq is not the whole problem," Cheney told ABC News' Jonathan Karl on "This Week" Sunday. "We have a much bigger problem than just the current crisis in Iraq."

He pointed to a recent Rand Corporation report showing there has been a 58 percent increase in the number of groups such as al-Qaida and jihadists.

Urgent: Do You Approve of Obama's Handling of Foreign Policy? Vote Here

"It stretches from west Africa, across north Africa, east Africa, and through the Middle East," Cheney said. "It's a doubling of the number of terrorists out there."

But the Obama administration is refusing to recognize that spread, said Cheney.

"The spread of the terrorist groups is not recognized by the [Obama] administration," said Cheney. "The fact that information could fall into the hands of terrorists is not being addressed. I think we need a broad strategy that lets us address the full range of the issues."

And when it comes to the current uprising in Iraq, Cheney said it's time to be "realistic about the nature of the threat."

Late last week, Obama announced 300 military advisers would be sent into Iraq to help with the situation.

"We're arguing over 300 advisers when the request had been for 20,000 in order to do the job right," said Cheney. "I'm not sure we have addressed the problem."

Further, Cheney said that he "would definitely" be helping the resistance in Syria with training and weapons.

"At this point, there are no good, easy answers," said Cheney. "The problem we're faced with is a much broader one. We need an administration to recognize that we have this huge problem."

This means to quit "peddling the notion" that because core al-Qaida members have been captured or killed, the problem is over."

Karl pointed out that although Cheney wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week that "rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many," there are critics, including Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who says Cheney was the one who was wrong on Iraq.

The former vice president said his position on Iraq has not changed since he was in office.

"I was a strong supporter then of going into Iraq," said Cheney. "I'm a strong supporter now. Everybody knows my position."

But if time is spent debating what happened 11 or 12 years ago, he continued. "we're going to miss the threat that is growing and that we do face."

In addition, he called Paul an "isolationist" who "doesn't believe we should be involved in that part of the world."

Cheney, though, continues to believe involvement in the Middle East is essential.

"One of the things I worried about 12 years ago and that I worry about today, is there will be another 9/11 attack," said Cheney. "Next time, it will be far deadlier than airplanes and box cutters."

Further, Cheney said that there is a growing situation in Pakistan, where there are nuclear weapons and technology sold to the North Koreans.

In his Wall Street Journal article, Cheney said "only a fool" would take the approach Obama is taking in Iraq, Karl noted, but Cheney said he's not just referring to that country.

"It referred to the fact that we have left a big vacuum in the Middle East by our withdrawal from Iraq with no stay-behind agreement and by the agreement that we're going to withdraw from Afghanistan," said Cheney.

The vacuum is being filled by people such as the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and in Pakistan, where the Taliban has launched a major attack on the Karachi airport, said Cheney.

"The scope of the problem is based upon an unwillingness by the president to acknowledge we have a problem," said Cheney. "They claimed we got bin Laden so terrorism is solved. That was not true then and it is not true today."

Further, Cheney said the nation needs to reverse course on its defense budget.

"We're decimating the defense budget," he said. "We need to go back to a two-war strategy."

He noted that the U.S. Army has 40 brigades, but "only four are combat ready."

And as a result, Cheney said, Obama has "dramatically limited the capability of future presidents to combat crises."

And when it comes to potential future presidents, Cheney said he is no longer impressed by Hillary Clinton like he was in 2008, when Obama selected her as Secretary of State.

At that time, he said he thought Clinton was tough, smart, and works very hard, and "may turn out to be just what President Obama needs."

But now, Cheney says, Clinton was working with a president with a fundamentally different philosophy and was not able to meet her potential.

"She has not operated in that environment," said Cheney. I think she's been a disappointment with respect to things like Benghazi and other problems."

And while Paul is considered a front-runner for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, Cheney said he has not picked his favorite yet.

"One of the things that is right at the top of my list is whether or not the individual we nominate believes in a strong America, believes in a situation where the United States is able to provide the leadership in the world basically to maintain the peace and to take on the Al Qaeda types, where ever they show up," he said.

Former Australian Army Chief: “Get Ready for a 100 Year War With Islam”August 10, 2014

The left has little patience for war. As Israel and the radical Islamic terrorists of Hamas battled in Gaza, American liberals–who opposed Israel’s attempts to defend its territory and citizens to begin with–began clamoring for a cease-fire after only a few weeks, even though such a move would be quite obviously counter-productive to long-term stability in the region.

After years of an American military presence in the middle east, it was the left’s impatience with the conflict that drove President Barack Obama to pull out of Iraq–prematurely, as it turns out. Even as he authorizes new military action in the country against the “Islamic State,” Obama felt obligated to warn Americans that the situation in northern Iraq will not be stabilized in mere “weeks.”

So the American left will not be happy to hear the voice of experience from Director of the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra Peter Leahy, who formerly served as chief of the Australian army.

Professor Leahy recently told an interviewer that the “war against radical Islam was likely to last for nearly 100 years,” according to the UK’s Daily Mail.

“Get ready for a long war,” Leahy said.

Noting the “significant increase in brainwashing content online from radicals looking to recruit” westerners to their cause, Leahy said the threat to the national security of western nations continues to grow.

The former Australian commander added that while many jihadists focus on the purity of Islam in their home countries, others target western nations as the source of impurity and evil. “We must be ready to protect ourselves,” he said, “and, where necessary, act preemptively to neutralize the evident threat.”

Liberals will really hate that. The idea of a preemptive strike, even against an enemy sworn to destroy you, is anathema to anyone who fears the possible consequences of, and inherent responsibility for, actual action–just look to liberal condemnation of Israel for an example. After all, thinking is so much safer than acting.

And that, of course, is not only what liberals want you to believe. It’s what radical Islamic terrorists want you to believe, as well.

Islamic State message to America: 'we will drown all of you in blood'Reuters

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Islamic State militant group that has seized large parts of Iraq and drawn the first American air strikes since the end of the occupation in 2011 has warned the United States it will attack Americans "in any place" if the raids hit its militants.

The video, which shows a photograph of an American who was beheaded during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and victims of snipers, featured a statement which said in English "we will drown all of you in blood".

U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq have helped Kurdish fighters take back some territory captured by Islamic State militants, who have threatened to march on Baghdad.

The latest advance by the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot, sent tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi ethnic minority and Christians fleeing for their lives and alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies.

Unlike al-Qaeda, Islamic State has so far focused on seizing land in Iraq and Syria for its self-proclaimed caliphate, not spectacular attacks on Western targets.

U.S. President Barack Obama said at a news conference on Monday that the Islamic State posed a threat to Iraq and the entire region.

(The story was refiled to correct the third paragraph to remove reference to airstrikes on Kurdish fighters)